For the past ten years the European University of Tirana and Polis journal have grown together. Now, as they enter their second decade of life, both the University and Polis, are ready to cross the borders of Albania to integrate in the European academic area. Therefore, we have fully redesigned Polis to transform it into our main vehicle for producing and transmitting knowledge about Albania and the Western Balkans. Our goal is to establish Polis as a prestigious open access academic outlet for up-and-coming researchers in the social sciences and humanities.

Starting from this issue Polis will only publish articles in English that have gone through a rigorous double blind peer review process. Both these steps are necessary to ensure that we communicate with international academics and fellow researchers and that we uphold the highest academic standards.

As sources of information and access to data have increased exponentially, sources of ‘knowledge’ have been crowded out causing dangerous levels of misinformation, misperception and plain untruths to sip into mainstream public discourse. To counter it, scholars need to step up and publishers need to provide them platforms to make their research more accessible to a wider audience. Although small, and with limited resources, we at the European University of Tirana through UET Press take this responsibility seriously. Through the redesigned Polis, and by devoting more time, resources, and finances to research we aim to publish high-quality articles with impact in both the academic and policy-making world.

We are very proud of what we have achieved with Polis so far and look forward to steadily transforming it into the journal of record for Albanian academics and emerging international scholars studying the Western Balkans.

I hope you enjoy Polis’ diverse collection of scholarship and strongly encourage you to contribute your articles and reviews.